Wednesday 2nd May 2018
Well after our late arrival and night I struggled to wake this morning. DB got up early and caught the sunrise. It was quite spectacular but unfortunately I was too tired today to worry about it. When I woke and opened the windows I could see that our campsite was right on the water’s edge. It was a beautiful spot, albeit not the one intended last night. DB and I then went for a drive where we had a swim and a snorkel, the water was not too cold and once we put wetsuit tops on was quite pleasant for a snorkel. We saw many fish only a short distance from shore. There were golden trevally, striped ones and lovely mauve to yellow gradient ones. I also managed 8 x 50m efforts. That’s my swimming training for today done. After this we headed for a drive along the beach at Bottle Bay. Another beautiful destination with red cliffs and beautiful blue waters. We still need a little imagination as the wind and sometimes lack of sunshine lessens the beauty, if you can say that. We thought we we might be able to make it all the way to Cape Peron on the sand, but alas just to a picturesque part of Australia. I would say the most beautiful in this National Park. We then drove to Cape Peron where we walked 3km return to Skipjack Point. A very windy, windy Point where you can often see dolphins, sharks, rays and dugong from the lookout. Today unfortunately it was white caps and more whitecaps. Oh well, maybe next time. But as they say in WA. The WA stands for Windy Always. So maybe we won’t see it next time. We then walked back to Cape Peron for lunch. Leaving here DB wanted me to have a drive to practise my sand driving in case of emergency. Not so keen I had a go, intending to only drive to Gregories but was enjoying it and getting better so I drove the whole way back (42km). Even through the part at Cattle Wells where Nathan and Melissa were stuck last night.

We then stopped at Peron Heritage Station for a free hot spa in artesian water which was great as it was our bath for today. We then tried to get in to the Aboriginal Dreaming tour but they were fully booked with a school group (we would have tried earlier but have had no phone service since we entered the park), so we decided to stay in the National Park at Big Lagoon campground. This was only 10km back and we thought it would be quiet in there but as it was only a short distance in the bumpy, sandy track there were 15 of the 18 sites filled. The only spots were the high side which was extremely windy. Our windiest yet. Let’s see how the tent goes tonight. We tried a new cooking setup at the back of the car, using it and the door as a wind break. This also gave me a shelf for extra stuff as I sometimes lack room on the small table and it drives David nuts. It worked quite well. Well off to bed early as it was so windy and in the tent is so much warmer. Loving the new tent. Love love love it.

Tuesday 1st May 2018
Well today started off different to planned. After a spillage in the tent we hung around at Hamelin Station to do some washing and to dry the mattress. Lucky for the wind and the weather it was all washed and dry in a couple hours. All good except we missed the dolphin feeding at Monkey Mia.

We filled in the time without any problem with an exploration of the Station and surrounding areas. The station is amazing it is a Bush Heritage site and covers 202,000 hectares with 50km of ocean frontage. The white shell ground cover is such welcome relief from the red dirt. We explored the shearing shed and then rode our bikes the 5km down to the Hamelin Pool Stromatolites which we found very interesting. A lot bigger than the lake we rode around the other day. We then road to the shell quarry which was also very interesting, then past the old Telegraph Station which sparked some scientific conversation for our ride back to the station. Which by the way, we are very unfit on the bike. The ride back was up a slight incline but also into very strong winds. It ended up being a little bit of exercise as well. My head hurt so much and I am amazed at DB’s knowledge. He explained the basics of Morse Code, the telegraph wire, telephone and electricity. Don’t ask me to explain it tomorrow as stuff like the just won’t stick in my head. Mind you, at the time I found it all very interesting again, because I am sure I learnt it at school. Gave us some different conversation as well.

After getting organised we then headed on our way to our next destination via a few sightseeing spots. Little Shell Beach, Thong Shack and then into Francois Peron National Park which is at the top of this peninsula.

Francois Perron National Park is all sand tracks and has its own air pressure stop. Believe it or not DB heeded the advice and let our tyres down to 20psi at the stop. A miracle!! Thank goodness because within 5 minutes we came upon Rescue Operation No 1. A couple of young tourists in a hire vehicle who still had the air pressure at 33psi and had buried themselves quite well. They were already being rescued by a tour operator who just let their tyres down to 20 and drove them out. We quickly snuck by them so as not to be caught when they got stuck again as we were slowly losing light. We still had a 40min drive to Bottle Bay campsite at the top of the peninsula and about 1.5 hours of daylight left and being National Park there will be no lighting. We are enjoying choosing our site in daylight. A big but welcome change for us!

Unfortunately as luck would have it we came upon Nathan and Melissa, Rescue Operation No 2. They had been stuck since about 3pm and had been digging and trying several times with their green trax to get out without success. So with lots of investigating and consideration for oprtions, we helped them with the use of snatch strap, our maxtrax, another 2 helpers, lots of pushing and after about 2 hours we got them out. They had a camper trailer on and we ended up rescuing the car first, then turning the trailer around and hitched them back up to the car and they towed the trailer out one maxtrax length plus a little distance at a time. We did this with Nathan driving and all 5 of us pushing the trailer from the back 4 times. It was a mammoth rescue and was very dark by the time we finished and we left a very grateful Nathan and Melissa who decided, with a bit of encouragement, to just park and sleep in one of the passing bays for the return back in the morning. We still had about a 40min drive to Bottle Bay campsite but decided to join our fellow rescuers at South Gregories as it was a lot closer. When we arrived at the campsite we drove around and luckily there was only one other camper in the 2 camping spots, so it was pretty easy to find a spot. ’We chose where we thought the water was close and stopped for the night. By this stage it was 8pm, so we had a late dinner and then off to bed. We will have to see where we are and the top of the peninsula tomorrow.